Thursday, June 24, 2010

Graduation #3

Today Nikki promoted to high school. Yep, it's official; I'm the parent of a high school student. Wow. How did that happen so quickly? I swear she was born just a few years ago. Really, I SWEAR!! It was just last year that I had to carry her upstairs in the laundry basket with the clean laundry because I didn't realize until it was too late that I didn't have enough hands to carry her and the basket. And it was just a few months ago that she lost her first tooth. Wasn't her first communion two weeks ago??

The time is just flying by, and I know that I'm going to blink and then she'll be leaving to go away to college. I'm excited that we are done remodeling, because I really want to take the time to be present with her this summer. We are taking a family camping trip and then she and I are going on a mission trip to Tecate together. I feel like I have to savor every moment that I can, because if fourteen years went that quickly, four will be over in a heartbeat.

Happy promotion, Baby Girl. We are so blessed to have you in our lives.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Graduation #2

Friday was Emma's graduation, which of course is also Crawford's graduation. I LOVE graduation day!! It is so beautiful to watch the realization dawn on the kids' faces that THEY have done it!! Many of them are the first in their families to graduate from high school. Emma is one of those many. And while I do love ALL of our seniors, I have to admit it was a little different with one of my own.

Yesterday we got to celebrate with Junior (Emma's best friend) and Dary at their homes. Dary is new to spending time with the Pages. She kept staring at me and asked, "Do you have any idea how weird it is to have your teacher at your house?" Well, um, no actually. But apparently it's weird for her to be at my house, too, so I guess I just can't win. I'm weird wherever I go.

We have one more "graduation" to go-Nikki's 8th grade promotion on Thursday. It's been a BIG month. I'm SO looking forward to summer vacation. I think I've had about all the excitement I can handle.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Gradulation and Goodbye

Caleb's preschool "gradulation" (his pronunciation) was last night. He has been so excited about it for two weeks, and it was darling, as expected.

Unfortunately, we got a call around noon yesterday that Scott's Grandpa Dan had died suddenly and unexpectedly while working in his garden. We love Grandpa Dan dearly, and spent most of Devon and Nikki's childhoods enjoying their company. Scott has a unit designed around Grandpa's experiences as a POW during World War II that he teaches each year to his US History kids. In recent years, Grandma has suffered from dementia and we haven't been able to spend as much time with them because they can't really do big social events anymore. Grandpa was a tireless caregiver, and never got impatient with her. It was inspirational to watch their love change but never grow tired. Fortunately, Grandma doesn't fully comprehend what has happened, but I imagine it will all sink in eventually. So while we are glad for a swift and painless passing while he was engaged in one of his favorite activities, we are also painfully aware of what this means for Grandma. It's just very sad. And of course, we will miss him dearly.

Goodbye, Grandpa. We love you.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Together Again?

Scott is home!! He had a great time and they got some service projects done just in time for the campers to go to Yolijwa. I survived prom with our crazy calculus teacher. Emma rolled in at 0 dark thirty after dinner at Denny's. I picked the kids up from Mom and Dad's. And we were all together again. For about five minutes.

Now Emma is at the beach with her buddies and Nikki is swimming with hers (or on the way to youth group?). So Scott, Caleb, and I are hanging out. I'm thinking this is a little glimpse into what the next four years are going to look like. And I'm feeling very grateful that Caleb will not be abandoning us anytime soon.

On another note, this week will be bringing us some answers. There's a strong possibility that I have celiac disease, which sounds worse than it is. Sort of. It means I can't eat anything with wheat in it. Which is a problem for me, because I love all things baked! Like the homemade chocolate chip cookies Mom sent home with us. And bread. Any bread. So I'm not so excited about changing my diet. However, while researching this disease, I discovered that Caleb exhibits NUMEROUS symptoms associated with this disease (I had to have a pill camera take pictures of my insides to figure out anything was wrong with me). So he was tested last week as well, and since then I have noticed that he does exhibit more symptoms when he eats wheat products. Which means that The Pages will most likely be going gluten-free. Soon.

In the meantime, I'm going to eat some more cookies. And do you like how I'm starting all my sentences with conjunctions?? COME ON, SUMMER!!!

Friday, June 4, 2010

Abandoned

Our church is having a men's retreat this weekend, and Scott was on the planning committee. So now I am a single parent for the weekend. This weekend. Which is SAT weekend and prom weekend. So tomorrow I will be at work by 7:15 so that I can proctor the SAT and then race back home to do whatever Emma needs me to do to help her get ready and then somehow get her over to take pictures with Junior while also getting my kids to my parents' so that I can then turn around and get ready so I can go to prom with our crazy calculus teacher (an interesting story for another day). That was a big run-on sentence. And you know what? I DON'T CARE!!

I think I'm ready for a vacation. TWO MORE WEEKS!!!